Bookselling, Publishing

Amazon vs. The World: Next Episode

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A few days ago, we pointed out the news that Amazon was not taking pre-orders and delaying orders for books from Hachette. We’re talking books you have heard of, possibly read already, or may be looking forward to, such as J.K. Rowling’s next crime novel. (Read an excerpt through that link.)

Here’s a quick fact list on the Hachette dispute.

Now Amazon is refusing to take pre-orders for The LEGO Movie and other DVDs from Warner Home Video because of a contract delay.

Writers David Streitfeld and Melissa Eddy suggest the biggest bookseller on the planet actually needs the money: “Amazon hasn’t really explained what it is after, but here’s one compelling theory: The company just doesn’t have enough money to finance everything it wants to do. Rather than trim its ambitions, it is putting one side of its business through the wringer to pay for another.”

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Marshal of the Borgo,’ by Joseph D’Agnese

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I was alerted to this book by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall, and you can read his review for a more detailed discussion.

The Marshal of the Borgo is an interesting book, a combination of modern mystery and supernatural novel. I suppose it would be called a work of “magical realism.” The mystical elements aren’t specifically Christian, although a Catholic bishop plays a positive role.

It’s about a policeman from Rome who was severely injured and reassigned to be the top cop in an Italian small town, or borgo. A foreign immigrant worker is found murdered in a field, and the cop, Matteo Scarpone, sets about investigating, stepping on some important local toes in the process. But he also meets a beautiful woman, who is unfortunately married.

What amazed me about The Marshal of the Borgo was that as I read it I was certain it was a translation from Italian. It had the perfect feel of a translation. But on finishing it I discovered the author is an American, and it was written in English. Which makes it a tour de force of literary tone.

Cautions for language and adult situations, and occult references.

Authors

Don’t Quote Bonhoeffer

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Who said, “Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will”? It wasn’t Bonhoeffer, but it was written in Eric Metaxas’ book on Bonhoeffer, so someone fudged the rules on quotations and attributed the words to German pastor instead of his biographer. Today, Metaxas is getting out the word that his popular subject did not say this exact. He may have agreed with it, but he didn’t say it.

Now Wikiquotes, which I’ve found to be a reliable, though not exhaustive, resource, notes this quotation correction.

Uncategorized

Do We Still Need Colleges?

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Colleges have serious revenue problems, possibly because they don’t see themselves as businesses in a flexible market. They act as if they are a national necessity. Tyler Cowen writes, “The marketing pitch of many colleges, were it to be honest, would run something like: ‘If you don’t pay us money for our product, your decline will be all the more precipitous.’ That is hardly an inspiring motto.”

He goes on: “A lot of colleges and universities have revenue plans based on the expectation of big tuition hikes stretching into the indefinite future.” Too much money is spent on administration without clear benefits. Too little attention is paid to high-rocketing student debts.

He offers a few recommendations, like focusing on offer fewer great courses to make the college distinct and helping students learn how to teach themselves in the long run.

Writing

Build Your Writing Career

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39 Things to Remember While Struggling to Build Your Writing Career by Kimberly Grabas.

Some good thoughts here, not about incomplete sentences, but stuff like failure, personal manifestos, practice, and simply doing it. “Writing is supposed to be hard work.” Yeah. It’s not hard work like pulling weeds either. It’s hard work like speaking the truth in love when you’d rather throw snark from the corner.


The Writer by petebritney on deviantART

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Can the Preacher Tell Us a Story?

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Why are storytellers often bad preachers and preachers often bad storytellers? Smith writes, “This isn’t going to be another missive from an artistic apostle of Doubt-as-Creed, hammering his 95 thesis of why Theology is, like, so dumb and stuff, to the wall of the Witlessburg Cathedral for Zeitgeist Studies and Hugs.”

Reading

Read What You Like

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Austin Kleon writes, “We all love things that other people think are garbage. You have to have the courage to keep loving your garbage…” He says this because someone out there is telling us we should be embarrassed to read certain things. Kleon points to Alan Jacobs’ twitter feed for some good points on reading what you like. There’s also this.

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Friday Fight (sort of)

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This comes from the Åland Saltvik Vikingmarket in 2009. It’s far more demonstration than the fights we’ve seen in Minot, ND. They aren’t playing by the same rules, but there’s some appeal here. It’s a crime they cut the video too soon.

Bookselling, Publishing

Amazon Plays Hardball with Publisher Hachette

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In 2010, Amazon disputed its arrangement with Macmillan on ebook prices and removed the publisher’s books from its site. Today the largest book dealer on the Internet is refusing pre-orders on new books from Hachette and delaying shipment on existing titles. Stephen Colbert is one of the authors with un-new books on the shelf, and he isn’t amused by the delay of what he says could be 30 of his books sold in a year. J.K. Rowling’s new book is coming out soon, which means thousands of readers would have pre-ordered it through Amazon by now, but cannot–not for ebook or print.

Since Amazon has 65% of the ebook market, working a deal with them is important to any publisher, but they aren’t the only ebook dealer. Barnes and Noble, Powell’s, and others are available, and maybe conflicts like this will make any argument for DRM pointless. If I have a Kindle and want to buy an ebook, do I need Amazon to sell it to me?